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I';ve got one sat here already... and it's small enough to fit in a foglamp blank... wsa NOT easy to find one so small! I've hollowed the honeycomb out of the foglight blank ready to fit it still unsure if I will, but as I'll be doing the services myself I don't see why not as I';ll remember to compensate when topping oil up! Oh, and no drilling for me

The thing holding me back is how you'll get all the oil out at changes if you have one with a thermostat. Also I don't know if it will be easy to get rid of any airlocks when refilling it afterwards as well.

Yeah did consider that, I guess for the air locks you'll need to make sure the pipe is accessible so you can physically pump it yourself by squeezing I guess. I'm no mechanic though, so there may be another, better way! I did that when changing the thermostat on my old car and managed to get an air bubble in the system, just opened the resevoir, pumped the pipes round myself and the bubble worked itself out, and the car stopped over heating hahaha that fiesta was a pile of absolute pap

Listening meshman!!!! I'm soo willing to learn, I plan on looking after this baby till it dies, then when it does, engine rebuild with a supercharger! (see when I've slotted it into it's life span...?) At this rate, 100,000 miles will pop up in like 3 and a half years, 4 years time

Keep the oil cooler for the supercharger installation.
For what it's worth James, to my mind, to embark on a major engine project like supercharging one, you really need another engine as a base. That way you have the engine build going on and can still use the car. When it's ready, in it goes. And if there are any problems the standard engine can go back in while the modified one gets sorted. Doesn't have to be that way, but it sure makes life easier having a back-up unit at hand.

To answer the oil change question: Every aspect of a road car is a compromise and the intervals are the average value for the average driver at a frequency that Merc thinks won't put buyers off. The harder the engine works, the harder the oil works, which is why higher revving bike engines have 3-6k intervals. Smart engines are highly stressed and put a lot of demands on their oil. If Merc though they'd still sell, would they keep the 10k interval (or whatever it is), or would they reduce it? They'd reduce it; it's a compromise, just like everything else.

If you read your manual you should increase change frequency if the car is subject to constant hard running, dusty environments, bla bla bla. So without having to apply a magic formula, how do I know whether I can drive it hard in dusty places the day before an oil change and not worry about it?

Anecdotally it works, race teams do it (and I certainly use the bike hard enough to warrant it ) for a reason (I know my car isn't a race car, but I have been known to drive it very hard), and the people who know enough for me to trust their opinion 100% all agree that running less than the recommended interval is not a bad thing and have stated that vehicles where this is done are 'younger' internally than those where it is not.

The harder the engine works, the harder the oil works, which is why higher revving bike engines have 3-6k intervals. Smart engines are highly stressed and put a lot of demands on their oil.

Anecdotally it works, race teams do it (and I certainly use the bike hard enough to warrant it ) for a reason (I know my car isn't a race car, but I have been known to drive it very hard), and the people who know enough for me to trust their opinion 100% all agree that running less than the recommended interval is not a bad thing and have stated that vehicles where this is done are 'younger' internally than those where it is not.

Reasonable points SRS, but I will add this nonetheless! Bike engines are also using engine oil as gear oil. Gear trains are death to multigrades as the viscosity improvers (long chain polymers) get chopped to shreds leading to the oil 'shearing down' and going 'out of grade'. When it comes out p!ss thin, that's what's happened.

Yes race cars have their oil changed very very frequently - they have to. And that is where i believe this nonsense started. Changing your oil more frequently will not turn anyone into the next Sebastian Vettel! They will still be Joe Bloggs driving a road car.
What is good for track isn't necessarily good for road. To start with the oils for each are formulated totally differently as the race oil isn't expected to do distance or time.

So, and referring back to your point of flexibility re operating conditions. I can only assume that if not wannabe racers then the compromise (shortening the drain interval) occurs through lack of confidence in the oil being used.
On the other side, I have full confidence in the oil I use to go to the recommended drain interval as set by smart.
PS.
For fragile smart engines there is a greater case for increasing oil changes and an even greater case for using better oil, but it is elsewhere when applied to lowly tuned family cars that this is at its greatest level of absurdity. The trend however, needs to be moving in the other direction.

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